“McGrath never went to beauty school or trained professionally—the DJ suggested a makeup course, but it turned out to be too expensive. Instead, she learned by trial and error, often experimenting on her own face. (The trick of applying lipstick to eyes and cheeks, which she popularized in the '90s, was something she stumbled upon as a young girl, she says, "because stealing eye shadows from my mother's drawer was difficult, but I could snatch a couple of lipsticks and she wouldn't notice they were missing." This technique later became the basis for her liquid eyeliners.) Some of her earliest jobs were as an assistant to British editor Kim Bowen on underground fashion shoots around London for magazines like Blitz and i-D, where she later became beauty director. "I did whatever they told me to: sweep up, get coffee, hold a light. I was just so happy to be on those shoots and participating in the creative process." wsj mag, 11.9, The Beautiful Faces of Makeup Artist Pat McGrath”
